Geneva Motor Show: A Critical Look At Platform Sharing

SHARE AND SHARE DISLIKE — The new Audi A3, above, is part of VW’s ‘toolbox’ platform initiative, along with the Bentley SUV concept.

Having spent a few hours wandering around the 82nd Geneva Motor Show, ending March 18, I have many nutritious and entertaining things to say about the global car business, the titanic forces of the industry consolidation, dazzling leaps in powertrain efficiency, diversifying products and alliances, and so on.

Any one of the roughly 5,000 schlubs who showed up for press days this week could have written the product brief: Bentley, the highborn British vassal of VW Group, needs a sport-utility to compete against Range Rover and other ultraluxury brands such as Maserati and Lamborghini, both of which will be launching SUVs in the next three years. Such vehicles are particularly vital in eastern markets, from Russia to China, where the allure of European luxury brands is practically mystical.

Indeed, there is an undeniable Russianness to the Bentley. The fog lamps appear to be chandeliers from the Catherine Palace.

The grotty Bentley does bring us to a more pressing point: Bentley and Lambo, two of 11 brands under the VW Group umbrella, will actually share the group’s SUV vehicle architecture. Within a few years VW Group will build all its cars using only four modular baukasten, or “toolboxes,” one for small city cars, one for midsize cars, one for midengine sports cars and one for large vehicles such as the Bentley SUV, Audi A8 the Porsche Panamera.

Eleven brands, and scores of different models, from tiny to enormo, from slow to desperately fast. Four vehicle toolboxes.

The only exception, said Ulrich Hackenberg, board member in charge of VW Brand development, will be vehicles that are defined by their peculiar architecture. “We would never make a [rear-engine Porsche] 911 anything but what it is,” said Hackenberg. For everything else VW Group makes, the product pipeline is now a funnel.